Studies of the connections between urban geographies and studentification have an international signature across continents. Yet, the transformative effects of student populations in China are under-stated within theorizations of urban change, despite unprecedented demands for student housing. In this paper, we explore neighborhood change in Haidianlu within Beijing. With an original focus on off- and on-campus student accommodation, we show that studentification processes are fueled by predilections to live off–campus and the production of student-oriented housing. The significance of our discussion is to assert that less-regulated student lifestyles are reinforcing urban geographies of socio-spatial segregation and are illustrative of the effects of the privatization of housing and land markets in China. The concept of studentification is pivotal to theorize how cross-cutting relations between the expansion of higher education and marketization of housing markets are reshaping Chinese cities to become more exclusionary, and comparative to other geographies of global studentification
